Welcome to the 34th edition of the Carnival of Divided Government- The Quattour et Trîcênsimus - Special "Thanks to Obama, Geithner, and Bernanke Our Dollar is a Turkey" Edition.
Time to be Thankful
Even as the Administration, the Fed and our Congress destroys the value of our currency and by extension, our standard of living.
DWSUWF has much to be thankful for. I am thankful for CNBC, which is the only network where you can get beyond the sound bites, the mindless partisan sniping, and actually learn what is going on with our government policies and the consequences for the economy, jobs, the dollar, our standard of living and the future of our country. Case in point - this week on CNBC we learned about the consequences of devaluing our currency by printing money to service insane debt created by wild spending...Even as the Administration, the Fed and our Congress destroys the value of our currency and by extension, our standard of living.
[apologies for the formatting - I don't know why CNBC video "embeds" add all this blank space, and I can't figure out how to fix it]
... after all, since we are coordinating with central banks the world over, and since every other country of significance is also
So China is hoarding commodities, and India, Russia and other countries are buying gold specifically to hedge against the dollar. It would seem we are migrating toward a global gold standard whether we in the US want to participate or not. In the meantime the US continues to play Russian roulette with our currency and standard of living.
Let us again turn to Peter Schiff, who was right in 2006, was right in 2008, and who now tells us what to expect in 2010 and beyond. Three for three??
Frightening. But any investor would be foolish not to listen to what he has to say.
I am also really, really thankful that Scared Monkey posted this clip from SNL, which is quite possibly the single best bit that SNL has ever done:
Just get it over with!
My side hurts from laughing.
I am thankful that one year from now, we will be reviewing the results of the 2010 midterm elections and what they portend for the 2012 presidential campaign. As some may recall, only one year ago, Barack Obama ushered in the new permanent realignment of the American political landscape. With that election we learned that the United States was actually a center-left country. We learned that the Republican Party if not already dead was doomed to succumb to the inevitable demographic shifts in the populace and that ideas like fiscal restraint are so last century and irrelevant. Having learned all of this from the 2008 election we can only assume that the recent 2009 GOP gubernatorial victories in New Jersey and Virginia are attributable to the last spasms of a dying GOP corpse. And in that context I am thankful to Professor Jacobson's penetrating analysis of the 2009 race:
"Republican Bob McDonnell has been projected the winner of the Virginia Governor's race. Proving that even a small, unpopular, fringe party which does not appeal to moderates or independents, can win over a large, popular, mainstream party. The secret? More votes."
As explained in earlier editions, we have adopted Latin ordinal numeration to impart a patina of gravitas reflecting the historical importance of the series. In this the Carnival of Divided Government quottor et trîcênsimus (XXXIV), as in all of the CODGOV series, we select volunteers and draftees from the blogosphere and main stream media writing on the single topic of government divided between the major parties (leaving it to the reader to sort out volunteers from draftees). Consistent with this topic, the primary criteria for acceptance in the carnival is to explicitly use the words and/or concept of "divided government" in submitted posts. A criteria that, to our endless befuddlement, is ignored by many of the bloggers submitting posts, which sadly results in DWSUWF reluctantly ignoring their fine submissions.
Carnival
We begin with Gene Healy, blogging in the Small Government Times and offering "Three cheers for divided government":
"The Framers tried to craft a constitution that gave politicians proper incentives to check each other. “Ambition [would] counteract ambition,” as James Madison saw it, with congressmen keeping presidents honest and vice-versa.
Things haven’t worked out as planned. Too often, party loyalty trumps constitutional fidelity, as evidenced by former House speaker Denny Hastert’s self-image as a “lieutenant” of George Bush rather than a guardian of congressional prerogatives.
But when different parties hold the legislature and the executive, the Madisonian system works better. Divided government leads to many more congressional investigations into presidential misconduct, and, as two University of Chicago scholars demonstrated recently, “the White House’s propensity to exercise military force steadily declines as members of the opposition party pick up seats in Congress.” When politicians wax sentimental about “the wisdom of the American people,” it’s usually a good idea to hold on to your wallet. If we’re so smart, who’s to blame for the clowns we elect?
But when it comes to separating the purse and the sword, we may be brighter than expected. A good chunk of us deliberately split our tickets. In 2004, two political scientists crunched the numbers, estimating that more than 20 percent of American voters were “cognitive Madisonians.” In plain English, these voters consciously tried to “divide power and balance policy.”
One problem is that too many of that 20% think like Ann Althouse, who is still rationalizing her vote for Obama, despite understanding the benefits of divided government in "How much worse does Obama have to get before Althouse decides McCain would have been better?" :Here's my original 2008 election post-mortem — "How McCain Lost Me". Excerpt, beginning with a quote of something I'd written just before the election:I just threw up a little bit in my mouth. She knows that divided government works to restrain the growth of spending. She know that Single Party Rule leads to abuse of power and reckless spending. Yet she still voted for Single Party Rule and continues to rationalize her decision. No matter how many times I read her rationalization, I still can't figure out why. Somebody help me. Does she make any sense at all in this post?"Usually, I prefer divided government, but that doesn't mean I need to support McCain. I've seen McCain put way too much effort into pleasing Democrats and flouting his own party, and I can picture Obama standing up to the Democratic Congress and being his own man. What, really, will he owe them? McCain, by contrast, will need them. And we've seen that he wants to be loved by them. "...Yes, yes, I know. The "clarification" is killing us, and once we're dead, there's no coming back. And Obama isn't standing up to the Democratic Congress, unless he's doing it in some really subtle way that one day I'll appreciate.
John Batchelor looks ahead to next year's midterms in "Scripts for 2010":"The Republicans enjoyed Executive and Legislative majority rule rarely in the 20th century, and the results were deeply foreboding or dire, such as the 1907 Panic, or the 1929 crash, or the Iraq war. The Democrats enjoyed the same with sluggish to damning results, such as the First War, the Great Depression after the bank failures of 1933; the Second War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War. Divided government has long been the best scenario to confront the surprises of foreign policy and domestic lunacy. It reminds of the Churchill remark about democracy, the best of a bad museums of governance. Is there a good prospect for divided government for the 112th Congress in a year's time. Negative. Long shot."
One of Seven, blogging at the South Bend Seven patiently explains why "There's a reason they call it Oppostion.":"I say viva la oposición because (1) a divided government is a friend of Liberty, and (2) it's arrogant to think, as the party in power always does, that the opposition is opposed because they're stupid or hate America or don't care, rather than actually having different opinions."
Speaking of elections , DaveG at Race 4 2012 considers the meaning of the 2009 special election results and assesses the mood of the country as we look forward to the the next two election cycles. The mood he finds? - decidedly "Anti-Establishment": "Tonight was a victory for many things. It was a victory for the Republican Party, a sorely needed win by a party that was left for dead just one year ago in the wake of a supposed national Democratic realignment. It was a victory for those who believe in divided government, who recognize the extremism and corruption inherent in one-party rule... But first and foremost, tonight was a victory for the anti-establishmentarian sentitment that is currently permeating the American political psyche — a sentiment which was present in full force just one year ago and that was misinterpreted then, and probably will be misinterpreted now, as an ideological mandate instead of what it really is: discontent with the decimation of the American Dream and a belief that the elites and the political establishment, regardless of party, have the blood of the Republic on their hands."
FLG, blogging at Fear and Loathing in Georgetown, is stunned to find himself in agreement with a A Charles Blow column in "A First":"FLG completely agrees with the first clause because he believes Americans have a preference for divided government. He also agrees with the second clause, but not for all the reasons Blow cites. Blow's conclusion is that the Democrats haven't enacted enough of their agenda and they are beset by obstacles that make them unpopular. FLG says the agenda is unpopular and the obstacles are in their way largely because of that unpopularity."
Steve Vaillancourt at Red Hampshire finds hopeful signs in recent Rasmussen polls as does our favorite Scared Monkey - "Republicans up 6 points in generic ballot...": "Rasmussen also discovered that, perhaps as an indication of how badly things are going now, voters favor “divided” government. Only 30 percent think it’s good when one party controls both houses of Congress and the Presidency. 45 percent have come to believe that divided government is the answer, something I’ve long believed in. Dynamic tension prevents the mischief of big government spending and control of our lives."
Hal at Right Thinking from the Left Coast has been a consistent divided government advocate as long or longer than DWSUWF and like DWSUWF holds that view regardless of whether it is Dems or Reps with Single Party Rule. We also find ourselves sympathetic to Hal's Heidi Klum hope in "A clean sweep in the land of lovers":"I would not be surprised at all if Obama goes the Clinton route—remaining somewhat popular, winning re-election, but being utter death to Congressional and Gubernatorial Democratic candidates. I love divided government. I could live with Obama as President and a Republican Congress. But then again, I could also live with getting daily neckrubs from Heidi Klum. That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily going to happen."
Craig Farmer has a warning for Democrats at New Liberal - "Democrats will lose power if health care fails": "Add to all of this the natural tendencies toward divided government, and the natural political cycles that general punish the party of the newly elected President in the next off-year election and Demcrats should get the message: Pass a good health care bill. The best one you can think of. It may be your last chance for generation. If you do a good job, you will minimize the drop off on our side in terms of turnout, and may actually convince indepedent voters to stay the course. Anything else may be a disaster. "
The admin at "Truth Daily"appears seriously confused while gushing about the president in "Obama tells Congress 'Get a mop":""This man is tough. There can be no doubt about that. He commands respect. So what do you say Republicans, are you going to end this divided government, shut your pie holes and “get a mop?”
Mathematically the Republicans can obstruct nothing this President does or wants. Only Democrats in Congress can obstruct this President. The worst (or best) thing you can say about the Republicans is that they are choosing not to help President Obama overcome Democratic obstruction. The Republicans are under no obligation to provide the Democrats political cover as they pass extraordinarily bad legislation and bankrupt the country. Hope this lesson helps you add a little more truth in your daily blogging dose. You are welcome.
I
n my favorite post of the Carnival, maybe of the year, maybe of all-time, Allan Bevere gets religion and confesses in "I Humbly Repent of my Wayward Ways":"Up until a couple of years ago, I was a big fan of divided government, that is, one political party in the White House and the other party in charge of Capitol Hill. But then something happened-- I caught a strange virus. I started to believe that having only one party in power might prove to be very productive for our government and, therefore, by extension the American people. So, we had six years of Republican rule in both the legislative branch and the executive branch of government. Now we currently have the Democrats in charge. In watching both parties going wild with total power in their hands, I write this post to publicly repent of my wayward ways. I have returned to the true faith of believing once again in divided government and the holy process known as gridlock."
Finally, a history lesson from Mary Kate Cary writing in US New and World Report with an analysis of "Why Obama Needs a Big Republican Victory in 2010":"As conservative as Reagan was, he governed from the center because he had to work with a Democratic Congress. Similarly, within days of that "liberating" night in 1994, President Clinton met with political strategist Dick Morris. The two started to map out his policy of "triangulation," in which Clinton would be the apex of the triangle, working between and above the two parties. It turned out that Newt Gingrich and the House Republicans played more of a role in ensuring Clinton's re-election than any of the Democrats on Capitol Hill did.
Gingrich has been watching what Pelosi's been doing, and he gave some advice to the current president last week. "Obama faces a choice," he wrote. "He can attempt to run a left-wing government against the American people. Or he can govern from the center with a large majority of Americans supporting him. He can have either his left angry or the American people angry." Gingrich knows that divided government would bring Obama to the center, just as it did Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan.
Democratic control of the House, Senate, and White House hasn't been a boon to Obama. It has been a bust. His best chance for re-election in 2012 is a massive GOP takeover of the House and Senate next year. Everybody wins."
Miscellany
Traditionally, we conclude this Carnival by including one "off-topic" submission, as a grudging acknowledgment and proxy for the many off-topic submissions received. Off-topic in this context meaning - no mentions of "divided government" or gridlock.
For this edition we offer Everett presenting a nugget of truth from Friedrich Hayek on the road to serfdom in "The Danger of Ambiguous Legislation" posted at Honest Inquiry. :"This point is quintessentially non-partisan. The passage of ambiguous legislation leading to policy decided not by elected representatives but by bureaucrats, or left to judges, would seem to define the last 60 years no matter which party dominated politics."
Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for all of the submissions (on-topic or not).
Since this carnival is focused on the topic of Divided Government, and seeing how voters spectacularly rejected the idea in the 2008 election with no real prospect of restoring divided government before 2012, this carnival has been on a reduced publication schedule. Look for DWSUWF to pick up the pace in the new year, with the next edition of The Carnival of Divided Government quinque et trîcênsimus (XXXV)- Special Two Day Hangover Edition on or about 01-02-2010. Submit your blog article at carnival of divided government using our carnival submission form.
NOTICE: In the past, this blog has taken the time to post Technorati tags at the end of every post. We used Technorati because it provided a great service - It allowed me to easily find blogs that link to me, and to notify blogs that we have linked to them. The new Technorati no longer performs this function. At least not for this blog. I have no idea what the new Technorati is supposed to do, but it does nothing for DWSUWF. I hope to find another service that picks up what Technorati left behind. So we'll drop our Technorati sidebar widget, and leave them with this last tag: New Technorati Sucks
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